Bryan Sellers excited to help launch Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy Series

Formula E support series set for opening weekend

Rahal Letterman Lanigan is ready for this weekend's I-Pace eTrophy Series opener.

One of the issues with the ABB FIA Formula E series, thanks to its unwavering commitment to stay in character — the cars are all-electric and the series is scrupulous about maintaining that posture — has been the lack of a real opportunity to have a support series to help fill out the race weekend.

Any opening act would have to be all-electric — something which was simply not possible.

Until now, anyway. When the fifth Formula E season begins on Dec. 15 in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, it will be accompanied by the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy Series, which will run as a companion to Formula E during the 2018-19 season. As it is in Formula E, the Jaguar support series will consist of two-car teams — 10 in this case, 11 in Formula E. Representing the U.S. is a team that will be fielded by Bobby Rahal and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, which also competes in IndyCar and IMSA. The two drivers are the U.K.’s Katherine Legge and Ohio-born Bryan Sellers, who will be the lone American competing at any level on the Formula E weekends.

The cars, said Sellers—who is coming off the 2018 season championship in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona class — are a lot of fun to drive, but they require some acclimation. A lot of acclimation, actually.

Related

“They are very cool,” he said. “So different from anything I’ve ever done before.” The electric power results in “something a little bit like sensory deprivation. You don’t realize how much you depend on engine sound and rpm — shift points, braking points, for instance — it was a little bit of a culture shock.”

Sellers and Legge, who are longtime friends, have made two trips to England for testing. It’s being run, he said, sort of like the old Barber Dodge Pro series — all 20 cars are identical, but some setup adjustments are available.

He will be in the same car each race, with the same chief mechanic, but the engineers will rotate from one team to the next each outing.

Perhaps the biggest challenge, Sellers said, is that every single track he’ll be racing on is new. In the Saudi Arabia opener, they’ll be racing on a 1.8-mile, 21-turn street course carved out of hyper-historic downtown Diriyah.

The Jaguar I-Pace they will race has only mild modifications from the stock vehicle, which itself has blistering acceleration and a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds, with a top speed of 121 mph. The race car gets a big rear wing and an FIA-approved roll cage. Races will be 25 minutes long.

Related

Formula E itself is undergoing the most substantial change yet since the series began. The cars themselves will be the Gen2 models, with improved aerodynamics, more power, more torque, better braking and, most important, enough range to eliminate the need to change cars midway through a race.

There are no conflicts with the 2019 IMSA season, which is good news for Legge, who returns to the Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX in the GTD class. She and teammate Álvaro Parente battled Sellers and his teammate, Madison Snow, in the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracán for the championship right down to the last lap of the season-closing Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. Sellers hopes to be racing in IMSA in 2019, but the Paul Miller team, at least as of this writing, has yet to finalize its plans.

For 36-year-old Sellers, who has been racing since the age of 9, when he got his first kart, the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy Series represents a breath of fresh air. “One of the coolest things is that I really feel like I’m doing something for the first time, that I’ll be a small part of racing history—and possibly the future of racing.”